Hollywood Hero by Max Hastings
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“WARRIORS: EXTRAORDINARY TALES FROM THE BATTLEFIELD” 2005 - Chapter 11 - Pp 239-257 Hollywood Hero By Max Hastings IT IS A SCENE depicted in scores of could play this sort of corny stuff better than low-budget movies produced during the Murphy did. twenty years after World War II ended: on a shell-torn hillside, a GI pokes up his head as a Yet there is a profound pathos about group of Germans offer surrender. He is shot. Audie Murphy and the war film in which he His body rolls back into the arms of his buddy, starred. It was based upon his own experience who stares at it for a few moments in shocked of combat. When the Second World War disbelief. Then, boyish features frozen into a ended, he was probably only nineteen, at most mask of determination, the surviving soldier twenty - his birth date is uncertain, and seems grasps his carbine and charges single-handed to have been falsified to enable him to enlist at the German machinegun positions, shooting under age. Yet he had become the most and grenading until every treacherous kraut decorated American soldier of the conflict. lies dead. Then he stands numb and drained Again and again in a succession of actions in amid the carnage as the rest of his platoon Italy and France he displayed his courage in belatedly advance to join him. They stare the face of the enemy. He possessed extra- warily at this lonely figure, half awed and half ordinary qualities as a fighting infantryman, appalled by a display of suicidal courage they not least an eagerness to return to duty after know they cannot match. being wounded three times. He cherished some notions of becoming a career soldier, but This is a Hollywood caricature of war, abandoned these when his fame attracted the acted out many times by John Wayne and his attention of James Cagney, who was re- kind. The scene features prominently in the sponsible for bringing him to Hollywood and 1955 movie To Hell and Back, with Audie launching him on a career in films. In 1948 Murphy playing the angry GI. The star was the heavily-ghosted memoir of his war not much of an actor. His chief assets on experiences, To Hell and Back, became a best- screen were the baby-faced good looks of an seller, which led in turn to the film in which he all-American boy, which kept fans happy so uncomfortably played himself. For all through his appearances in twenty-five years Murphy's celebrity, happiness and fulfillment of cheap westerns. His performance in To eluded him. He was painfully conscious of his Hell and Back is wooden and one- paucity of acting talent. It is difficult to be dimensional. As the young soldier, he views unmoved by the history of a man who shot-blasted battlefields with the sort of contributed so much as a wartime soldier, yet dismay a dutiful schoolboy might show, found it impossible to parley military gazing upon a classroom trashed by a cluster achievement into any rapprochement in of delinquents. In scenes behind the lines, himself. amid bar girls in seedy Italian clip joints, he Murphy was born into a dirt-poor looks as embarrassed as he deserves to be. sharecropper's family in Hunt County, Texas, Violins dominate the musical score. No cliché probably in June 1925. One of twelve of soldiers dialogue is omitted from the script. children of whom nine survived into A film critic might say that Ronald Reagan adulthood, he gained little schooling before his despairing father abandoned their home. than a rifleman, but the young soldier was Audie's class-mates mocked him as 'short- having none of it. He remained in the same breeches', because his only pair of trousers unit from beginning to end, until he became shrank with relentless washing. After the fifth almost the sole survivor of the band which had grade he embarked on several teenage years of mustered in North Africa. casual labour - cotton-picking, selling newspapers, working in a gas station. His Murphy had to wait some months mother died of heart disease in 1941, and most before first experiencing action in July 1943, of his siblings disappeared into orphanages. following the invasion of Sicily. Most He himself had shown an early interest in the soldiers in a theatre of war are willing to do possibility of becoming a soldier. One of the what is asked of them, but are careful not to few positive influences upon his childhood seek additional hazards. Murphy's eagerness was a local World War I veteran who enthused to join patrols and take point during advances, the boy with his reminiscences. The US Army together with an obvious dexterity with was a familiar refuge for young Southerners weapons, earned him a rapid promotion to lacking money or education. When America corporal. He joined the Italian campaign with entered the war in December 1941, Murphy the US 3rd Division, landing near Salerno, and sought to enlist. He was rejected by both the was committed to a series of battles around the Marines and the paratroops. This was Volturno River. Encountering Germans on a unsurprising, since he stood five feet five night patrol, after a firefight he and his men inches tall, and weighed just 112 pounds. The took over in a quarry. The enemy pursued army eventually accepted him in June 1942, them, but were halted by American fire which aged eighteen on his record, probably killed three men and caused the others to seventeen in reality. After training at Camp surrender. This action earned Murphy a Wolters, Texas, 'Baby', as he was initially sergeant's stripes. nicknamed by comrades, was shipped overseas. In February 1943 he joined B A bout of malaria put him into hospital Company of the 1/15th Infantry in North for the Anzio landing. Like many other Africa as a replacement. infantrymen in the same predicament, when discharged he fiercely resisted efforts to send A reserved man all his life, beneath an him as a replacement to a new regiment. He iron mask of self-control it was plain that insisted upon rejoining the 15th Infantry, Murphy nursed a lot of anger, as well he committed to heavy fighting in the beachhead. might. From the outset of his military career Murphy sought the front constantly, and he showed a determination to succeed as a became well-known for his enthusiasm for soldier, and also a satisfaction in finding seeking out the enemy alone, stalking and something he could belong to - the platoon. killing Germans wherever he could find them. For the first time and perhaps last time, here He earned his first Bronze Star for leading a was a group amidst which he felt at home. night patrol to destroy with Molotov cocktails Loyalty to the handful of men among whom and rifle grenades a damaged tank which the he served was among the most striking Germans were striving to repair. Another features of his wartime career. Again and attack of malaria sent him back to a field again he refused opportunities and promotions hospital for ten days, but he returned in time to that might cause him to be separated from join the advance on Rome late in May 1944. them. Almost at the outset, an officer troubled Offered a battlefield commission, he declined by his slight figure and boyish features sought lest he should be obliged to leave his platoon, to make Murphy a headquarters runner rather which whom he shared a disappointing leave in the Italian capital after its liberation: 'We His platoon had the equivocal feelings about prowl through Rome like ghosts', he wrote him which soldiers usually display towards later, 'finding no satisfaction in anything we zealous warriors - they respected his courage, see or do. I feel like a man briefly reprieved but feared that it might prove excessively from death; and there is no joy within me. We dangerous to the interests of others. can have no hope until the war is ended. Thinking of the men on the fighting fronts, I Murphy cut a lonely figure, a man who grow lonely on the streets of Rome.' seldom received a letter from home at mail call, because he knew few people who might Murphy was a grave young man, who care to write. He was the sort of soldier whom embraced responsibility and seemed happy to commanding officers cherish, because they accept it on behalf of others less ardent. He need them to win battles. A distinguished fulfilled the hardest duty of a soldier in American World War II infantry officer wrote: combat: he was willing to engage the enemy 'A few guys carry your attack, and the rest of even when logic and instinct incited more the people sort of participate and arrive on the normal men to seek shelter or to flee. Murphy objective shortly after everybody else.' This is claimed to be as vulnerable to fear as any of an important truth. Likewise another veteran, his comrades. This was patently untrue, Colonel William DePuy: 'The average man, though his excellent tactical judgment helped like nine out of ten, does not have an instinct him to keep his nerve when others lost it. He for the battlefield, doesn't relish it, and will not demonstrated a gift for judging a combat act independently except under direct orders.' situation, assessing whether holding a position Audie Murphy, it was plain to all those who or moving forward was in reality as perilous as observed him in action, was the one man in the sound and fury of battle persuaded other ten, indeed the one in a thousand, even if his men that it was: 'Experience helps.